Tabbed Moleskine – using an X-Acto knife (craft knife) and a label maker. I’ve seen similar things done before, but this looks a bit neater, with the printed labels.

Home-made City Book – since the City Books aren’t out for a while yet, if you’re in a hurry, see Geoffrey Litwack’s guide to making your own. Could be quite handy for any other sort of project, not just a city visit. (Via Make:.)

Beribboned – via Moleskinerie. I prefer the simplicity of the clean lines, but if the plain black cover leaves you wishing for a bit of colour, this does look very smart.

There’s a Flickr set with a few different decorations and replacement closures from Bubi – really nice stuff.

Tim’s Moleskine Hack – using Post-it Notes attached to the first two or so pages as a makeshift Hipster PDA. Stupidly simple, but not a bad idea. I’m trying out using pencil and just erasing and rewriting, but lots of people hate using pencil, so this could be a good alternative. (Via Moleskinner.)

Pen Holders

A nice simple elastic pen holder from Paul at Active Voice. Being elastic, it should be able to stretch to different notebooks, too, as long as you stick to almost the same size. One that fits a large Moleskine should work out ok with most A5 books.

How about a leather pen holder? Simple to do, and just takes an offcut – handy if you’ve worn out your leather trousers, and are looking for a way to reuse the scraps.

Cases

Kody’s Moleskine iPod Hack – needs a few fairly specific items, but might give you some good ideas if nothing else. A case that holds two Moleskines and an iPod video, with a bunch of pens and pencils and spares. (Via Moleskinerie.)

Knitted Moleskine Case – along with a few other knitted projects. Doesn’t include any instructions or pattern, but it doesn’t look too difficult. If you know how to knit, anyway, I doubt I’d get far with it.

Repairs

Emberlexi has put together an excellent set on Flickr, showing how to do a proper job of repairing the spine. Spend a bit of time on her other crafty pics, whilst you’re there – there’s lots of stuff there. Via Moleskinerie.

Repairing a Loose Elastic Band – if the elastic that holds your Moleskine shut comes free from one of the holes, let Steve guide you through fixing it.

Alternative Uses

Jazzmasterson has come up with an interesting hack – turning a Moleskine into a HipsterPDA case.

I’ve looked at several pen holders. I even bought one that got glued to the back. But I like my idea. You can use it for any book, not just a Mole. It just takes about a 12 x 2 inch piece of clear box tape. It’s simple, clean, and cheap. But don’t let that fool you. I doesn’t look bad either:

Just to explain for those outside the UK – the US version of Pimp My Ride is presented by Xzibit. Whilst I couldn’t call myself a fan, he’s funny and cool, and presents the show with some real style.

Over in the UK we get the same show, but presented by some insufferable twunt called ‘Westwood’. He’s pretty fly, for a white guy. He talks constantly in what he probably thinks is real gangsta rap speak, but as far as I can tell, it’s just gibberish. I don’t claim to be any expert on such matters, but he seems to fall a long way short of cool. I’m so unhip it’s a wonder my bum doesn’t fall off (and I’m stealing jokes from Douglas Adams), but I still suspect I may be cooler than Westwood.

Anyway, you don’t even have to take my word for it. There was even a petition to get MTV to change their minds, but I wouldn’t take the word of anyone who can’t spell the name of the person they do want presenting the show. Or any other words at all, for that matter – even such challenging ones as “maby”, “pleas”, and “whant”. Still, even people who can’t spell “ther” think he’s an idiot.

I decided to hook all of the fivers out of the Moleskines and treat myself
to something. I fancied a Pelikan 205 clear bodied fountain pen, but Ray at
http://www.pelikanpens.co.uk told me that they are no longer available. It wasn’t
long before I had talked myself up to a Pelikan Souveran 805 in black – oh
yeah!!

Well I don’t drink and don’t smoke anymore, and you can only eat so many
Smarties each week, so tomorrow I will sit here awaiting the call of the
post person with my Pelikan in hand. Then thrash them resoundingly for
removing it from the packaging!

The story gets even better as I had to pay using my debit card, which means
that I might as well put all of the fivers back from whence they came until
I have another insatiable pen urge!

You buy the pen with the nib that you foolishly think will be right for you!! When you realise that it is wrong you get to try others then send back the ones that you don’t want. So it is in fact nib exchange in reality.

I have just paid £200.20 for a flight from Shetland to Glasgow and that is with a 40% islander discount. If I had to fly down to London to see a Pelikan it would probably cost the same as a M1000. Suddenly it becomes obvious why I use mail order!!

That’s certainly good service – letting you try before you buy. Most places can do a nib swap shortly after buying if you don’t like the nib size/shape you get, but you can’t beat trying a couple of different ones out and choosing your favourite. The nearest place to go and actually look at a Pelikan is probably London for both of us!

The 800 certainly is a chunky pen, but in a stylish way. The silver on black is such a fantastic combination.

I saw the Pelikans at CultPens and I have to say that the service has always been great. In the end it was a few quid cheaper elsewhere, but what really sealed the deal was getting to try out more than one nib. Ray sends them out in the post and you send back the one (or two) that you don’t want. Certainly a good bit of marketing, especially for those of us that have to take the plane to get to our nearest Pelikan dealer.

Sorry, I shouldn’t be promoting the opposition here, but I am sure that you will see it as positive. CultPens is on the whole appealing to a different market and I was especially pleased when they started selling the Pilot C-Tec G4s in a range of colours – cool!!

We’ve just started selling Pelikans at work, and they are great. I have an M600 now – the M800 series were a little bit heavy for me. Beautifully smooth filling and writing. I actually think I like it more than the Lamy 2000, but it’s close.

Every time I start a new Moleskine I unwrap it, open it up, write my name, phone number and reward in the front (I bet no-one else has Viking Biscuits as the bribe!!) and slip a five pound note (worth about 100,000 US$) in the pocket at the back.

I suddenly realised that I have a great stack of Moleskines that have either been started or finished, so they all have a fiver in them – ho ho!! I should have enough to buy an iPod Shuffle and some change!